David is the Chairman and CEO of Brand Finance Plc – the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance which is celebrating 25 years in business this year.

David represented the British Standards Institution in the working parties responsible for crafting international industry standards: ISO 10668 on Brand Valuation in 2010 and ISO 20671 on Brand Evaluation in 2019.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles on brand valuation, published in numerous marketing and finance newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He is a Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a practising certificate with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Konrad leads Brand Finance’s place branding and soft power practice. He liaises with clients, directs consulting projects, and is responsible for the creation and promotion of the annual Global Soft Power Index, Nation Brands, and City Index studies.

Konrad has extensive experience in advising clients in the fields of place branding and public diplomacy. Before joining Brand Finance, he worked at the Polish Embassy in London where he developed and delivered successful marketing communications campaigns as well as media relations programmes of official engagements by the president, prime minister, government ministers, and the ambassador.

In his role at Brand Finance, Konrad has advised a variety of place branding organisations, including the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Campaign, New Zealand Story, and Cape Town Tourism.

Before moving on to grow the place branding practice, Konrad was the Communications Director of Brand Finance and Managing Director of Brand Finance’s PR agency – Brand Dialogue for 5 years. He has a proven track record in executing integrated communications strategies, having been responsible for publishing nearly 100 industry and country reports on the world’s most valuable brands on an annual basis.

Konrad has qualified with the Professional PR Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). He studied European Studies MA at King’s College London and the Humboldt University in Berlin, and International Relations with Political Science BA at the University of Birmingham.

Federico Bianchi is the Spokesperson and Head of Press and Public Diplomacy at the European Union Delegation to the UK and serves as the current President of the Diplomatic Press Attachés Association London (DPAAL).

Federico is an Italian career diplomat who has served in Rome, Islamabad, Shanghai, and London, both at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and at the Italian Embassy to the UK.

Prior to entering the Italian foreign service, he worked for the UN in Montreal and the EU in Brussels.

Federico has a degree in law, master’s degrees in International Relations, EU Law, and International Economics, and a PhD in International Law.

He speaks fluent Italian, English, French and Spanish, good Portuguese and has studied Mandarin and Urdu.

Passionate about tech and digital diplomacy, Federico is interested in the interconnections between media and politics and in the role of diplomacy in the 21st century as a global force for good.

Conrad Bird is Director of Campaigns & Marketing for the Cabinet Office and was formerly Director of Campaigns & Marketing for the Department for International Trade, and prior to that Director of the GREAT Britain campaign, based at 10 Downing Street. While at No 10, Conrad’s role was extended to include responsibility for delivering major cross-government campaigns, as well as ensuring Government spending on communications was efficient and cost-effective.

Previously Conrad worked at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as Head of Public Diplomacy and Strategic Campaigns. He was responsible for a wide range of policies and campaigns, including soft power, the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, and campaigns in the Middle East, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Conrad joined the Government in 2002, initially working with the Central Office of Information on issues that included teenage drugs, consumer rights and international export. He moved to the Cabinet Office to work with the first Permanent Secretary of Government Communication as Director of Strategic Communications. Here he launched ‘Engage’, a new approach to Government Communication, and was responsible for campaigns to counter-terrorism and animal rights extremism.

Before joining the Civil Service Conrad spent 18 years in advertising, working with a number of agencies on national and international business. During this time he also set up an award-winning communication consultancy which he successfully ran for eight years.

Dr Keith Dinnie is one of the world’s leading figures in the field of nation branding. He is the author of the first textbook on the subject, Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice, which has recently been published in a third edition (Routledge, 2022). Previous editions of the book have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

He has advised various organisations including the Korean Presidential Council on Nation Branding, the United Kingdom Government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), and Brand Scotland. He has delivered keynote speeches in China, Japan, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Iceland, South Africa, and South Korea.

He is currently the Head of Management and Marketing at the University of Dundee School of Business (UDSB), United Kingdom. He is the founder of Brand Horizons (www.brandhorizons.com).

Richard Gardham is the managing editor of Investment Monitor, a GlobalData publication that analyses all aspects of the world of foreign direct investment. Before joining Investment Monitor, Richard worked at the Financial Times on The Banker and fDi Magazine, and before that on various national newspapers. Richard is also a published sportswriter.

Solomiya Borshosh is an expert in strategic planning, evaluation and good governance; works at the intersection of international relations, development and civil society. She has more than 12 years of professional experience in auditing and management.

Thematically, her work is related to democracy, peacebuilding, good governance, independent media and cross-border cooperation. Her portfolio includes more than 15 consulting projects and more than 30 programmatic evaluation projects in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus (for  Sida, Danida, USAID, UNDP, European Endowment for Democracy etc.).

In 2017-2019 Solomiya held the position of Deputy General Director for Development at the Mystetskyi Arsenal, and from 2014 to 2016 worked in the public sector (in the independent media hromadske.ua and a coalition of public organizations RPR). Prior to joining the public and public sectors, Solomiya worked as a senior auditor for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Solomiya Borshosh has ACCA membership and a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London (UK). Solomiya also received a master’s degree in law and auditing from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukraine).